Determined People™ Debuts as Agentic AI Source of Truth for High-Stakes Hiring

Determined People™: An Agentic AI Source of Truth for High-Stakes Hiring

The Talent Studios has introduced Determined People™, an agentic AI-enabled platform built to identify, recruit, assess and select top candidates with speed and precision. The system was developed by cross-continental teams in Israel and North America and reflects decades of executive search practice baked into software.

The goal is simple: give HR leaders and their partners a decisive advantage in a tight market using AI that mirrors how elite search consultants work-at scale, with consistency, and with measurable outcomes.

Why this matters for HR

Most AI hiring tools summarize data. Few act with context, autonomy, and follow-through. That's the gap Determined People™ aims to close.

Jeremy Cohen, CEO & Co-Founder, points out that many recruitment tech startups are led by engineers who discovered HR as an opportunity, not as a craft. Their tools often miss nuance that matters during senior hiring and selection.

Built by search operators, not just engineers

Kelli Telling, Co-Founder, spent two decades in executive search after earlier roles in data architecture and digital product development. She notes that many tools produce narrowed shortlists, but the underlying philosophy and logic remain a black box.

Determined People™ is different in one key way: it was trained on The Talent Studios' validated analog search process-refined over nearly twenty years-to replicate what expert consultants do when stakes are high and context is messy.

What's inside the platform

• Mixed-model LLMs with long context windows trained on an established, proven search process
• Enterprise-grade reliability with strong price-to-performance outcomes
• Candidate identification that maps real business dynamics, not surface keywords
• Real-time psycho-social signal analysis during interviews and case simulations
• Decision spaces that create autonomy for client teams without losing expert guardrails

As the team puts it, this system captures the judgment "between the two ears" of veteran consultants and puts that capability into the hands of early-career recruiters, talent leaders, investors and operating partners.

How it models your business-and targets the right talent

Determined People™ breaks down a client's business into core characteristics and KPIs, then projects those into the market to isolate companies and candidates with observable efficacy markers. The result is tighter targeting, faster engagement, and more accurate shortlists.

After outreach, the platform evaluates candidates in motion-during live interviews and simulations-so your team can make decisions based on behavior, signals and context, not just resumes and summaries.

Rollout timeline

Deployment begins late 2025 and runs through early 2026, with phased access for client organizations and investor partners.

Where The Talent Studios focuses

The firm is a retained executive search partner across consumer-centric categories, including:

• Consumer technology, digital commerce, four-wall commerce and service businesses
• Iconic brands, entertainment, media and content
• App-enabled consumer services

Vertical expertise:

• Fashion & apparel; food & beverage; beauty & personal care; lifestyle brands
• Action sports; fitness/wellness; creator economy; media & content
• Digital and physical consumer services (healthcare, FinTech, education, two-sided marketplaces)

Notable investor partners and direct brand clients

• Apollo Management, Advent International, Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, L Catterton
• Institutional Venture Partners, HIG Growth, Norwest Equity Partners, North Castle Partners
• Red Bull, Mattel, Disney, Burton Snowboards, Restoration Hardware
• The Princeton Review, Pure Barre, Raising Cane's, Boardriders
• Aston Martin, Fanatics, Soylent, SmartyPants Vitamins, Lulus.com
• Restore Hyper Wellness, Peet's Coffee, Public Goods

What HR leaders can do next

• Define success criteria upfront: quality of hire, time-to-slate, interview-to-offer ratio, retention at 12-24 months, on-the-job ramp time.
• Ask for explainability: how the system constructs search logic, evaluates signals, and ranks candidates.
• Pressure-test bias controls: adverse impact monitoring, audit trails, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints.
• Validate integrations: ATS/HRIS connectivity, data governance, SSO, and regional compliance.
• Pilot with real roles: run a side-by-side against your current process and compare outcomes, speed and costs.

Key quotes from leadership

"For AI products to be valuable, their creators need to fundamentally understand the context and logic of the industries they are serving," says Cohen.

Telling adds, "Much of what makes Determined People™ unique is its ability to distill client businesses into constituent elements and characteristics, then project those into the marketplace to instantly isolate and target organizations and candidates through observable efficacy attributes and KPIs."

Compliance and fairness still matter

Agentic systems increase speed, but governance is non-negotiable. Ensure any vendor supports fairness testing, explainability, and ADA-aware processes during assessment and selection.

For context on legal considerations, review the EEOC's guidance on AI and employment selection tools: EEOC: AI in hiring and the ADA.

Upskill your HR team for AI-enabled hiring

If your team is formalizing an AI skills roadmap, explore practical learning paths by role here: AI courses by job role.

Bottom line: Determined People™ brings agentic AI to the hiring process with the judgment of seasoned search operators built in. For HR leaders under pressure to deliver better hires faster, this is a practical step forward-provided it's implemented with strong controls and clear success metrics.